On the Bus Mall
by Jack E. Peace
Summary: We bit our tongues, sucked our lips into our lungs, because we were falling, such was our calling. And here in our hovel, we fuse like a family. 2010


**Disclaimer: **The characters don't belong to me. The title and inspiration for the story comes from the song "On the Bus Mall" by the Decemberists and maybe even a little bit from the song "Love the Way You Lie" by Eminem and Rhianna.

**A/N: **Okay, so I just felt inclined to write this and I'm not really sure how it turned out but here's hoping! It takes place after the movie and is just a short little vignette dealing with Quentin and Nancy. This one's dedicated to my friend Tori, who read it first and always appeases me when I have a _Nightmare on Elm Street_ moment. Again, I hope everyone likes it!

**"On the Bus Mall" **

Quentin Smith was sure that the neighbors were used to the sound of slamming doors. If they weren't yet, they were going to be soon, because he had the feeling it wasn't going to be the last time Nancy Holbrook snarled some incomprehensible insult in his direction and punctuated it with the slamming of the door. Heck, it probably wasn't even going to be the last time it happened that night. But, just like the neighbors, Quentin was used to slamming of doors and he'd done his fair share of the slamming, done his fair share of the insulting and wondering if Nancy felt the same flash of anger and panic slice through her gut as he did whenever he slammed the door in her face. Usually, when Nancy went storming out, tossing over sketch pads and still lifes, he just sat on the couch and scowled at her retreating form, wincing when the door slammed. But Nancy seemed to like to follow him around as he stormed out so he usually slammed it right in her face, blocking out her hurt and angry expression, though the wood usually couldn't block out whatever she shouted after him. Especially if it was something sorrowful and apologetic.

Often, Quentin wondered how they had come to this point. At first everything had been perfect, beautiful, the stuff of great romance. Everything about Nancy was like a drug to him: her hair, her eyes, her smile (the rare creature that it was), her clothes, the way her skin was so soft even though she was so hard. He knew he could overdose on her because she was all he wanted, the smell of her skin, her shampoo, her pastels, it was enough to intoxicate him. For days after she spent the night, his sheets and pillow smelled like her and he was ashamed to admit he'd found himself just laying around long after his alarm had gone off, in a stupor of Nancy.

But now, here they were, slamming doors in each other's faces, using words like weapons far deadlier than the one they'd escaped together. Together. They only thing they did together now was get complaints from the neighbors and discover new ways to insult someone you loved.

And Quentin was sure that he loved Nancy. Even now, even after she'd just looked him in the eye, slung the word "hate" right in his face and blundered into the hallway, he was sure he loved her. Ironically, she had been the one to use that dreaded and addictive "l" word first, laughing it out accidentally one afternoon when he'd snatched up her sketchpad and pastels and tried to draw her as she laid there on the bed. Of course, he couldn't draw a stick figure and he'd really drawn a blurry black mass, which he'd sworn was her hair, always hidden under the stupid knit hat of hers. "That's why I love you, Quentin, you see what everyone else doesn't." He'd been sold ever since on the word and the girl it belonged to, a brand on his heart that she'd wielded with expertise.

It was the same brand that flared up on nights like this. It gave her a bulls-eye, the place to aim when she wanted to fight, when he said something wrong or she did something wrong and doors were getting slammed and neighbors were pounding on their ceilings for them to shut up, move out or they were going to call the cops. But the cops had never showed up and somehow they were still there, cohabiting and not shutting up.

Tonight, Quentin didn't even know what it had been that had set the fight off. If Quentin didn't love Nancy so much, he might think that he hated her. She was always doing things that drove him crazy. Once she did things that drove him crazy in all the best ways, the way she seemed to look at him from beneath her eyelids, a smile in her irises when her mouth was a thin line. Or the way she let her lips kiss every inch of the scars that had been left behind, cleansing him over and over again, healing what had happened to him.

Now everything seemed to drive him crazy in all the wrong ways. The way she seemed to look at him from under her eyelids, like she couldn't stand to meet his gaze or look into his face. Or the way her lips or fingers found the scars on his chest, gravitating to the thing that had brought them together.

Those horrible days, the memories they'd never be able to shake. They'd wanted nothing more than to leave it all behind, give up and start over again. But what they were doing, the relationship, the living together, the loving, it was all a testament to what they'd overcome.

Quentin remembered one fight now (most of the time they all blurred together, swirls of angry words and slamming doors that were eventually creaked open again with tears and sorry words), a stupid, nothing fight that never should have happened at all. He'd told her he wished he'd never gotten to know her, that in high school he wished he'd just stayed the hell away from her so she wouldn't drag him into the crazy shit they went through together. She'd told him, in a much calmer voice, that she wished for that too before stalking out of the front door, easing it closed behind her in a way that made him worry that she was never going to walk through it again. He'd stayed up all night, pacing a hole in the carpet, his mind racing fast enough to keep him awake even as the hours ticked by on the clock. It had never been this easy to stay awake when it had been a matter of life and death. Or maybe this was just a different way something could be the difference between his life or his death. Finally she'd come home again, as the sky was streaking with its morning colors, looking just as tired as he'd felt. She'd tried to move past him to the bedroom but he'd grabbed her in his arms and held her and that had been the solution for weeks: the fear that he'd lost her, the fear that she wouldn't come home again, not from a nightmare but from something he'd said.

But now, a part of Quentin almost wished she'd walk out the door and never turn around. It would stop all this madness, it would stop them from tearing each other apart so successfully he was surprised he wasn't bleeding out on the floor. It amazed him how they'd fought so hard against Freddy and his claws and his sadism but they were finding new ways to perfect his old tortures, getting as places he'd never dreamed he could reach. Nancy was his personal killer, just like he was hers but God when he thought about never seeing her again he wanted to punch a hole in the wall, he wanted to scream, he wanted to dream and never wake up again. He hated how much he needed her but he hated even more a world without her in it.

As much as Quentin had to admit his infatuation with Nancy in high school, how he'd puppy-dogged her in the hallway, making excuses to talk to her at lunch, spending his odd-chore money at the diner, he wondered if things would have turned out of the same way if it hadn't been for Freddy. It made him laugh to think of Freddy Kruger as some sort of sadistic matchmaker, Cupid from Hell but maybe it was true. Maybe what they had been through had brought them together, maybe they couldn't have done it alone. Nancy said she needed him, she said it almost every night, often after they'd come back, spitting out apologizes and hard kisses and maybe even the frenzy of discarded clothes and sex to bring them closer together. "I need you Quentin," she would mumble as she tried to burrow into his chest as they laid in bed together, knowing sleep was pointless because the day was blooming around them. "I need you."

And God-damn if he didn't need her to. But would they be going through this every night if it hadn't been for Freddy? He doubted it, figured that the fighting and the swearing and the hating was proof of the fact that they never would have worked out. Would they have dated, would he have jumped ship the first time she'd yelled or he'd thrown a vase? Probably and he would have called Nancy "the high school girl" or "the girl I'd thought I'd loved." But fusing together after what had happened with Freddy, becoming a united front against post traumatic stress, bad memories, nightmares and fear of basements and striped sweaters had seemed like the only plausible thing to do. They'd taken their skin and melted it together until it was one giant scar, the product of something they both wanted to leave behind. A family built out of tragedy, a love built on fear, understanding and, maybe, even love. Is this what all survivors did? Quentin wondered. Did they make something together, only to break it apart over and over again and glue it back together because they needed each other to stay sane? Was that all it was, or was there love in there too? Quentin hoped the latter, because anything else would have been sad, pathetic, a domestic violence case waiting to happen.

Quentin cleaned up the mess they'd made that night, the mess that came when throwing words wasn't enough. He hated it when he threw things in her direction (never at her, or so he swore) but when Nancy flung her sketch pads and pens and the television remote at him he welcomed it because it was a physical pain instead of an emotional one. He always cleaned up, just like she always cleaned up when he was the one to storm out, as a precursor to the _I'm sorrys_ and the _I love yous _and the _I need yous_. Because Quentin felt all those things and when Nancy rattled them off, he could tell she felt them to. A clean apartment would erase what had been done that night, a clean slate, a weak promise to make sure it never happened again.

Not as much time passed as usual before the door creaked open again and when Quentin turned the first thing he saw was her eyes, peeking into the apartment as though making sure that it was still there, that their anger and desperation hadn't imploded it while she was gone.

Quentin went to the door and pulled it open, taking her by the wrist and pulling her inside. In that moment, he didn't care what it was that had brought them together, whether it was some horrific days that they never wanted to live through again or something honest and good but he was glad that they were together, that she was there again.

Nancy bowed her head and rested her forehead against his chest, trying to fuse with him all over again. They would fight, shout, tear each other up with their words, the way Freddy had scratched and torn at them and when they made everything better again, they were still tearing and pulling at each other, but this time in an attempt to become one thing, a new creation born from fire, fear, pain and the need for comfort.

"I'm sorry." Nancy mumbled, just as she always did, her voice shaky, her tears unshed for the moment, like she'd cried them all out. Quentin put his arms around her. "I need you."

And God-damn if he didn't need her too. Maybe tomorrow night would be more of the same. Maybe tomorrow night they'd just hold each other and watch a movie and order Chinese and when they went to bed maybe they would do it without the tangle of sheets. But he doubted it because maybe they needed fire to fuse them together.


End file.
